Faith and Values Letters to the Editor - 11/23/2007

As Andy Duphrane said in "The Shawshank Redemption," "Hope is a
good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies,
so get busy living, or get busy dying. Fear can hold you prisoner,
hope can set you free."

The opposite of hope is the atheistic "marvelous theory of
Darwin." So engrossed is it in its survival of the fittest, with
its Marxist/Hitleresque speculations of master race and socialistic
beliefs, that hope is nowhere to be found. Accordingly, we all are
products of our desire to reproduce and our degenerating society
with its obsession with what you own and whatever makes you happy
certainly follows that theme.

Morality has taken a dump, preceded closely by the causative
atheistic evolution. Oddly, there are those who claim both
evolution and creation, but their feet are resting solidly in
mid-air. Christians claiming evolution do service to neither, but
only comfort to atheistic beliefs for, if Christians claim their
own interpretations of the Bible's direct statements, then some
will say they can make if fit their belief system also. There then
is no hope. So are you getting ready for living, or dying?

Irvin Forbing

Escondido

Is bishop also donating his salary?

I do not understand asking priests to give up one month's salary
when also asking all parishioners to do the same ("San Diego
diocese priests donate to help pay for abuse settlement," Oct. 7).
I would ask this question: As our shepherd, is Bishop Brom giving
up one month's salary and has he asked his board of financial
advisors to do the same? If this has been done, I want to also
suggest that he ask the two to four wealthiest parishes to donate
one month's collection, and for their parishioners to donate one
month's salary. Only after this has been done, and Brom is still in
need, would I ask the rest for help.

As I am sure he knows, many in this diocese are in that group of
working people who daily and weekly need to ask the hard questions,
"Do I pay the rent or do I buy the medicine my child needs?"; "Can
I buy food for my family and still pay the rent?"

Janet Mansfield

program chairperson

Call to Action

San Diego

Creation science fiction

My favorite creationism story is about Glenn Morton, who
published 20-plus creation science articles and was an authority in
creationist circles for years. Then he decided to put creationist
ideas to the test as a geophysicist for a petroleum company, where
he hired several other creationists. When they confronted the
physical reality of the planet Earth, they soon realized that
creationist geology was simply false and all suffered severe crises
of faith. Other creationists called Morton names and dismissed the
episode as a lack of faith, which exposes starkly that creation
science is simply Biblical literalism masquerading as science.
Here's the story:
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/gstory.htm
.

Unlike Morton, the creationists whose letters regularly appear
here can serve up this creation science fiction forever without a
comparable reality check. That wouldn't matter except that they're
trying to sneak this sham into science classrooms through political
tricks. To do so, they must recruit among the uninformed in such
places as this letters section.